“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” Romans 13:8-14
There is an urgency in Paul’s tone as he closes his letter to the saints at Rome. He is urging them to practice love for one another and for all men. He says they should give attention to this because it is high time to awaken out of sleep. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and we tend to follow the path of least resistance when it comes to our efforts to put on Christ. In the night of his betrayal, Jesus came to his sleepy apostles, “Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, ‘What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’” (Matt. 26:40-41). Strong’s Concordance says this about gregoreo (1127): “Metaphorically, to watch i.e. give strict attention to, be cautious, active: — to take heed lest through remissness and indolence some destructive calamity suddenly overtake one.”
In essence Jesus is telling Peter, James, and John to wake up and to act alive. There are things in life that sometimes prompt us to urgency about matters. The story is told of some men who were digging a deep drain in East London in Victoria Park. Some of the shoring gave way, and tons of earth fell down on several men who were at work. Of course, this produced a great deal of excitement; and standing by the brink there was a man looking — I grant you, with real earnestness — on those who were attempting to dig out the earth and rescue the men. A woman came up to the man, put her hand on his shoulder, and said, “Bill, your brother is down there!’ Oh, you should have seen the sudden change! Off came his coat, and he sprang into the trench and worked as if he had the strength of ten men.
Amid the masses of the poor and the degraded and the lost, our brother is there! We must not fold our arms and say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Without a doubt, Jesus says that we are. “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’” (Matt. 5:40). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well” (1 Jn. 4:20-21).
A sense of urgency refers to the feeling that a matter is pressing and needs to be completed as soon as possible. People who have a strong sense of urgency realize that time is of the essence and use it efficiently to complete their work quickly. It is high time to awake out of sleep, for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. It is high time to turn our good intentions into gracious action. What is it that we need to do to be ready for the Lord? Do it today! The night is far spent, and the day is at hand!
L Scott Gage